Car Argument

     Car arguments are repetitive, they go no place, and seem to always involve the same things; perhaps its because no one can walk away from them without getting killed, raising the stakes to an unacceptable level.
     A typical weekend drive: my wife and I in the front seat, Sam sitting in the back seat, babbling away about whatever and trying to entice a rubber alligator to eat the foot of a barbie, an endeavor I wholeheartedly endorse.
     It usually starts the same way, with the radio playing a song we (that is, me and Heather), both enjoy. First I begin tapping the rhythm on the plastic of the dashboard; playing the louvers of the dashboard vents like a washboard. Soon, I'm singing along, making up lyrics when the words escape me. Suddenly, Heather reaches out and angrily changes the radio station. Unfazed, I continue tapping the rhythm and vocally move toward finishing the interrupted verse...and... I'm only three words from the end when she yells,

     “STOP IT!”

     I hadn't consciously been aware that I had been singing until she yells, but I then immediately feel an intense sense of dissatisfaction, like a lack of closure. I only had two words left, and I would have stopped on my own. But NO, she couldn't let me finish, and now I'm all vocally blue-balled.
     "Why couldn't you just let me finish?" I complain, "I only had a little bit left."
     She responds incredulously, "Left of what?!? You didn't have anything!"
     “The song. I was just..”
     “Why do you have to ruin every song on the radio?”
     Sam pipes in from the back seat, “I like daddy singing!”
    I gesture to the back of the vehicle, “...see? She liked it! It wasn't so bad.”
     “It was unnecessary. Why don't you just listen to the song?”
     “Fine, fine. Whatever. I was almost done.”
     “Did you even know you were singing?”
     “Uh....no.”
     “Then how do you know you were almost done?”
     “Because I was almost at the end of the verse.”
     “You would've gone on.”
     “....wouldn't have.”
     “Whatever.” I must admit I pouted a little...
     We drive in silence for awhile.
     Sam is quiet for a bit. ... The rubber alligator suddenly sails past me and bounces off the dashboard onto my lap. “I want music!”
     Heather turns the radio on, and flips through the stations. Soon some crappy classic rock comes wafting out of the radio. I don't like Elton John. I especially hate “Tiny Dancer.”
     I patiently sit, growing annoyed, as the song plays on....and on....and on... I try to forget the music, as I watch the signs pass by the car. I look on the floor. I look at the ceiling. I begin rifling through the contents of the glove compartment. Hmm...onion soup mix?
     Soon, and without thinking, I begin singing along with the hateful song, singing along with Elton. "Hold me closer, tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highway!" Angry at myself for singing along, I begin singing mockingly, in the voice of the classic lounge singer, "SpongeBob."
     “Stop IT! Can't you just sit there and listen to it?”
     “I'm sorry. I hate this song.”
     “Why didn't you just say that?”
     “Because you were listening to it!”
     “So fucking it up is better than just telling me the truth?”
     From the back seat Sam pipes up, ”you said a bad word!” and Heather begins to blush. I turn to the back seat and advize Samantha to "shush."
     “Shush,” sez I
     “But mommy said-”
     “Sam,” I interrupt,
     “she did...”
     “You can't say it just because mommy did."
     “How come mommy can say fu-”
     “You wanna hear Fraggles?”
     “YEAH!!!”
     I insert the CD, and the fraggles sing. Heather and I exchange glares.....